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Sep

8

Today we had a delivery of the ecobutton at work and I got to play with it a little. This USB device plugs into your PC and magically ecourages you to save electricity by putting said PC to sleep if you leave your desk (if you remember to push it). That’s the theory of it anyway. The trouble is I have a big problem with it. It’s not just that this device is made of plastic, probably the cheap nasty kind that kills you if you look at it in the wrong way. It’s not that it’s made in China, which means it either got to me via a cargo ship or an aeroplane spewing CO2 as it travelled thousands of miles. It’s not that it uses electricity while it’s sitting there doing nothing. It’s not even that it looks like it cost 30p ($0.52 ish) to make but sells for about £7 ($12.35 ish). The big problem with this device is the implementation. You know what it does? When you press the ecobutton it does this:Read more…

Jun

17

Over the weekend I decided to take a little look at one of the latest incarnations of OSX to see what all the fuss was about. One of the real problems with OSX is that under normal circumstances you have to shell out at least 399 GBP before you even get to try it out. If you don’t like it or can’t get on with it you’re out nearly 400 big ones and who wants to risk that?

There are of course ways around this and I took the plunge with a Kalyway 10.5.2 iso. My laptop is an Acer Aspire 3692 WLMI which originally came with an 80GB hard drive which I have already upgraded to a 160GB drive. Since I was only going to be testing this out I wasn’t about to erase my current linux install. I dusted off the the old 80GB drive and swapped it out with the 160GB drive and kicked off the install. I actually did the install a couple of times to get used to how Mac people do stuff.Read more…

Jun

4

A couple of my colleagues are currently in Taipei attending Computex 2008. There seem to be quite a few eeepc clones and look alikes. Nick is uploading photos to Picasa if you want to take a look – there’s an eeepc album too. Unfortuneately it’s a fairly slow process since it appears he can only upload 5 pictures at a time for some odd reason. ASUS also have a neat GPS unit (R710) with an optional HUD, though he wasn’t sure if some sort of film would be needed on your windscreen to be sure of contrast. There are a couple of pictures of it in the GPS album. There are some exciting new products appearing so keep an eye out for updates. He also stopped by the FIC stand to ask about the Freerunner and Openmoko but, in his words:

“I asked and they said no very dismissively”

which is a huge shame really. They may be different companies (FIC is the parent iirc) but they really should at least try to fein enthusiasm – this is a trade show after all , they are supposed to be trying to get people interested in product. It simply reflects badly on FIC imho.

Apr

7

A discussion started yesterday on the irc channel with regard to 3g. Most people had made their mind up but we really wanted to see what others thought too. So, to find out how everyone else feels here is a little, totally unofficial poll.

Would you buy a device after the GTA02 that did not have 3g?

GPRS is not enough but 3G isn't necessary. EDGE would be okay, too. (16%, 174 Votes)

I don't know. (8%, 87 Votes)

No. 3g is essential. (48%, 533 Votes)

Possibly. If there were enough features added to make upgrading worth it. (14%, 158 Votes)